


The Mystery of Dressrosa! Enter the Doctor!

by Eccentwrit



Category: Doctor Who, One Piece
Genre: Dressrosa Arc, Gen, Luffy Being Luffy, Luffy Is Too Nice For His Own Good, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Doctor Finally Meets People Stranger Than Him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:44:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5019823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eccentwrit/pseuds/Eccentwrit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and his companions crash-land onto a charming island full of great food and life-size toys that walk among the populous. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Dressrosa isn't the idyllic place it sells itself to be. While trying to get to the secret buried in Dressrosa, the Doctor realizes he may be a bit under-prepared and is forced to team up with a gang of pirates if he wants any hope of saving Dressrosa and it's inhabitants.</p><p>--<br/>The Doctor+Straw Hat team-up no one asked for.<br/>Poor Law.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Doctor Who S1E11 "Boom Town" and during One Piece episode 630 "Explore! a Kingdom of Love and Passion- Dressrosa!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know I'm really REALLY bad at updating on any sort of schedule, but I have a reason this time! See, I started writing this mostly as a way to get back into the swing of writing after so long, and it worked. 
> 
> But unfortunately now I'm re-reading this and cringing because it's so different from how I normally write that it doesn't even feel like mine, so I've been going back and re-writing the Prologue and Chapter 1 before I post Chapter 2.
> 
> So sorry for the super long wait, but hopefully the final product will be worth it.

 

"Rose! Jack!" The Doctor called out, dashing excitedly around the control room, pulling levers and flipping switches.

  
  


The TARDIS lurched, nearly sending her occupants, wherever they may be, crashing to the ground. The Doctor white-knuckled his grip on the console and used his momentum to swing himself around to the other side to check the tachyon output levels.

  
  


So far within normal range. Good. Recharging was always much more complicated now after the war…

  
  


Rose walked carefully into the console room, doing her best to keep her balance amidst the constant shaking that had become commonplace while traveling with the Doctor. The TARDIS pitched again. Reflexively, Rose latched onto one of the coral support columns, keeping her legs under her as she rode out the aftershocks of the particularly violent roll.

  
  


Thank goodness she had lots of practice like this by now, otherwise she would have been thrown straight into the railing that surrounded the main platform.

  
  


The Doctor glanced at her briefly out of the corner of his eye as he continued to work. He held down the Red Button with one hand and did his best to stretch to reach the Inertia Dampener’s lever under the main viewscreen. The tip of his middle finger barely brushed the handle.

  
  


He wiggled his fingers, hoping to get just that much closer, then he would get it. He hadn’t had this problem during his last Regeneration, Eight could reach everything just fine. Oh no, but _he_ was stuck with Nine and his statistically-below-average arm length.

  
  


Though that being said, he did have a good pair of legs on him this time around. _Well actually_ , he considered the lever again, _that might work_. Without further ado he swung his leg up and onto the console. To the Doctor’s delight the heel of his boot caught on the lever’s handle and he pushed it down, engaging the Inertia Dampener.

  
  


Parking brake firmly in place, the Doctor could now turn his attention to his companions, well, companion. "How would you two like to visit Cryllis?” He asked, not caring that Jack had yet to arrive or whether or not he would object to their destination choice. This was mainly for Rose anyways; Jack could handle himself.

  
  


Besides, who could object to Cryllis? It was gorgeous and mainly a tourist planet, so there weren’t many dignitaries they could piss off, and the worst security could do would be to ban them from the planet, and really, how often did that happen?

  
  


...Alright, so fairly often, but that wasn’t the point.

  
  


“It's a planet that rains diamonds, Rose. Diamonds!" The Doctor shot her a massive grin, eager to hear her thoughts on his choice of destination. He rocked back on his heels in anticipation. Rose always got so excited when he talked about new places for her to see, and as long as he could pull off a safe-yet-fun trip every so often, then all the longer she’ll stay before the danger of traveling with him scared her off for good.

  
  


Leaving the Doctor was the farthest thing from Rose’s mind at the moment, and she laughed from her spot by the coral column. The Doctor’s obvious glee in getting to show off only fed her own excitement and she made her way over to where the Doctor leaned against the console absentmindedly toying with a strange looking crank.

  
  


"Real diamonds?" She asked, unable to mask the interest in her voice, not that she’d have wanted to. “Not like that fake stuff Mum’s necklaces have?”

  
  


"Cubic zirconia- that’s what the fake stuff’s called. And no, they’re real diamonds." he confirmed. Rose started to ask another question, but the Doctor cut her off. “We’re not gonna bring any back for Jackie either.” The Doctor interrupted firmly.

  
  


Rose pouted. “Oh come on, Doctor. It's the least I can do for her, being gone all the time and everything. She worries you know.” Well that was just not fair, Rose trying to guilt him into things.

  
  


He tried not to give in, he really did. “Oh alright.” He huffed, crossing his arms. “But only one, got it?” His hearts gave a jolt when she beamed up at him, and stuttered again when she threw her arms around him and gave him a quick hug.

  
  


“Thanks Doctor,” she breathed, elated.

  
  


He was about to add the condition that she could only keep a small one for Jackie when another alarm blared. He abandoned Rose to dash around the console, trying to locate the source of the problem.

  
  


He disengaged the Inertia Dampener, hoping that would reduce the temporal pressure of remaining (somewhat) stationary in the timestream. That seemed to do the trick, as soon as he threw the lever, the TARDIS shook and the alarms died off.

  
  


“Well,” the Doctor cleared his throat, “as I was saying, the best time to visit Cryllis is at sunset right after a rainfall, so of course that’s where we’re heading.” He said, very assuredly for someone who had a bad habit of not always landing where they aimed. “The way the light reflects off of the fresh diamonds- makes the whole area look like a sea of rainbows and fire. It’s said to be one of the most beautiful sights in the universe.” He trailed off wistfully, letting out a soft sigh as he imagined it. Things like this were what kept him traveling despite everything.

  
  


“It sounds lovely Doc, but I don’t think it could hold a candle to our Rosie. Don’t you agree?” Drawled Jack, who had finally made his way into the console room.

  
  


“Right.” The Doctor agreed wholeheartedly, crawling halfway on top of the console to hold down a large green button while stretching as far as he could to press a bright yellow one. Too far. “Rose, could you-,” he wiggled his fingers in the direction of the button. Rose, Rassilon bless her, understood what he needed immediately and move to get the button for him. “Just a press.” He told her. She complied, and he was able to let go of the green button. “Fantastic job, Rose.” He said with a wide grin.

  
  


Behind him, Jack sulked. “How come you never ask me to help, Doc? I’ll start thinking you like Rose better if you keep that up.” Jack tried to whine, but with most things Jack did it also sounded a bit like a flirt. “Besides, I’m a Captain you know. I’ve flown a lot of ships in my time, and you’ve never flown with me before.” Jack shot him a slick smile. That last bit was definitely a flirt.

  
  


“Oi, down boy!” The Doctor said sharply. “Hands off.”

  
  


“You or the ship?”

  
  


“Both!”

  
  


Rose covered her mouth to try and stifle her giggles, but to no avail. She shook her head. She would have to break them up, or else they’d go at it all day, and then they’d never get to Cryllis. “Jack,” she interrupted them, “what took you so long?” She smirked, an idea forming in her head. “Did you get lost?” She asked teasingly.

  
  


Jack spluttered indignantly. “No!” That was a yes then. “This ship just hates me! I swear the rooms keep moving!”

  
  


Rose winced. “Yeah, the TARDIS does that sometimes.” Jack fit so well into their little group, she had actually forgotten he hadn’t been with them for very long, and that there were still things about the Doctor and the TARDIS he didn’t know.

  
  


Jack was shocked. “What? What kind of ship does that?” He waved his arms about, as if somehow hoping to catch the words he needed to say exactly how strange the idea was to him.

  
  


The Doctor huffed. “Oh calm down. She’s just having a bit of fun.” He said in defense of his ship. He pulled down a keyboard out from one of the monitors and typed some commands into it. “I was telling Rose we’re heading for Cryllis.”

 

The TARDIS shuddered as she prepared to exit the timestream. “I’m thinking to aim a bit early. Once the tourist industry came to Cryllis the lines just became ridiculous, not to mention the smuggling business. The influx of diamonds from Cryllis on the market nearly ruined their galaxy’s economy.” He shook his head. “You apes got to stick your nose in everything don’t you?” He said, somewhat teasingly. “Anyways it took centuries for them to recover. Cryllis diamond movements are heavily monitored now, so we’re going to avoid that.” He said, surprisingly cheerful for such a heavy subject.

  
  


The TARDIS suddenly lurched, catching them all off guard as the klaxons blared. Rose nearly lost her balance, catching herself on the railing before she could fall on top of Jack.

  
  


Jack, who was not as quick as Rose, ended up lying flat on his face, cheek smushed into the grating. Rose felt a pang of sympathy for him as he struggled to right himself. Jack brushed off his shirt, trying to act unaffected by his slip, but Rose knew better even with his smooth smile already back in place.  His arm was firmly latched onto the rails in a death grip, giving him away.

  
  


Pretty soon he’d get his TARDIS legs and would grow used to the sudden jerks the TARDIS made during every trip, but for now she relished in being the more experienced one for once.

  
  


But the Doctor still hadn’t silenced the klaxon alarm, and a cold thread of worry and fear settled in Rose. “Doctor!” She shouted, trying to make herself heard over the din. “What’s going on?” The TARDIS gave another concerning shake, causing more alarms to wail.

  
The Doctor moved about frantically, pulling levers, pushing buttons, turning cranks, seemingly doing everything possible to get the TARDIS back under control. He paused only occasionally to type into one of the computer terminals on the console.

 

The Doctor grimaced. “It seems that turning Blon back into an egg did a number on the TARDIS's energy reserves. We don't have enough to reach Cryllis.” He yelled back to them.

 

 

There was beat as he read the readings off the console. “We don't have enough power to reach anything.” He added, sounding slightly surprised.

 

“What are you tryin' to say, doc?” Jack shouted from behind Rose. “What's going on?” He strained his voice to be heard over the ever-growing alarms.

 

The Doctor turned to them, a manic grin splitting his face. All other sounds seemed to fade as he exclaimed, blue eyes glittering with excitement, “We're going to crash.” 

 

 


	2. Ch 1: Crash! The TARDIS Without Power!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! So guess who sucks at updating? Me!  
> So sorry about that, here's an updated version of Chapter 1 to tide you over (Chapter 1 updated on 6/23)

**"** Crash? What do you mean we're going to crash? Can you stop it? Can we help?" Rose fired off frantically, trying to get a handle on the situation. Keep a cool head, this was no time for panicking, she told herself firmly.

The TARDIS shuddered.

Jack lost his grip, falling on top of Rose, sending them both stumbling across the walkway and into one of the coral columns.

The Doctor tightened his grip on the console, barely keeping himself from becoming dislodged. "I'm doing everything I can!" He snapped. "Nothing's working!" He quickly flipped several switches, as if to prove his statement.

Jack tried to steady himself, using a split in the TARDIS corals as support through the continuous tremors. "Have you tried engaging the external flux modulators?"

"Have I tried engaging the-?" The Doctor pulled himself away from the console long enough to glare at Jack. "Of course I have!" A particularly violent jolt from the TARDIS send the Doctor flying halfway across the console. He used this to his advantage, unhooking a cable that ran to the under-workings of the TARDIS and reattaching it to an empty socket. As soon as he plugged the cable in, a jarring grinding noise overwhelmed the alarms.

The Doctor swore, quickly undoing his work. "That's it- we're landing right now!" He threw the lever next to him and the painful grinding was replaced with the more familiar grinding of the TARDIS attempting a landing.

The TARDIS landed with one final surge and a sigh that sent everyone tumbling to the ground. The lights flickered and dimmed before turning back on, bathing them in the eerie green of the reserve power lights.

The Doctor recovered first, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and immediately inspecting each and every piece of the ship he could get his hands on. He swore and scowled at the results on the sonic. He banged it across his hand several times before giving it a quick shake and scanning again.

"Doc, what the hell was that?" Jack asked, an edge of hysteria betraying his otherwise even tone. He pulled himself off the floor with a soft grunt, unaware of the indents on his face from where it had been pressed against the grating.

"Yeah Doctor, wha' happened?" Rose asked, brushing her hair out of her face as she stood up. "It looks like that time the power went out at Mum's an' we had to do everything by candlelight." She said, looking around and taking stock of the TARDIS.

Then she frowned, turning back to question the Doctor, who was kneeling under the console, scanning a section of wires coming up from the grating. "But that doesn't make any sense, 'cause I thought the whole point of stopping in Cardiff was to recharge, so the TARDIS can't be out of power already." When the Doctor didn't reply right away a feeling of cold dread swept over her. "Can it?" Rose asked, her voice barely reaching above a whisper.

The Doctor hesitated. "It seems that I may have underestimated the amount of energy the TARDIS used on Blon." The sonic gave a shrill chirp, and the Doctor winced at the results. "A lot more than I thought." He shoved the screwdriver back into his pocket and stood up with a huff.

"It's not easy you know, reversing the aging process." The Doctor said defensively. "The radiation from the Rift wasn't enough to compensate. Now the old girl's exhausted." He said, giving a sympathetic pat to the TARDIS console. The Doctor pulled down a monitor and typed in some quick commands. Lines of text scrolled across the screen. The Doctor frowned at the readouts.

Rose had travelled with the Doctor long enough to know when he was avoiding a question. But he wouldn't lie. Not to her. "Doctor, can the TARDIS recharge here?" She asked quietly. "We aren't stuck here are we?"

The Doctor briefly met her eyes before looking away to fiddle with a switch. "I don't know Rose. I'm sorry." His voice was grave. "I'm so sorry both of you," he said, looking first at Rose, then Jack, "but unless we find some kind of energy source for the TARDIS to feed off of, I have no idea how long it could take for the TARDIS to generate enough power herself to leave the planet. It could take centuries if we can't find something to supplement the process." And centuries would be too long for two-thirds of the TARDIS's passengers.

Rose could admit she was scared. But she also trusted the Doctor to somehow find a solution before centuries had passed. She had seen him find ways out of seemingly impossible situations before, she knew he could do it again.

Jack lacked Rose's faith, and wasn't so certain of their predicament.

"Well, we just have to find one then, don't we?" Rose said, trying not to feel discouraged. "I mean, if the TARDIS can charge in _Cardiff_ of all places, then there must be something here that would work."

But Jack frowned. "It's more complicated than that, isn't it Doc?" He said.

The Doctor sagged. "I don't know where we are." He admitted quietly.

"What? What do you mean?" Rose asked.

"I mean I don't know where we are!" The Doctor snarled in frustration. He yanked the monitor around so that Jack and Rose could see the screen. Most of it was covered in windows filled with strange circular symbols, but the diagram of the planet and the lack of information was plain to see. "I've been scanning the planet ever since we landed and nothing! There's no data on it anywhere!" All the energy seemed to leave his body as he let his shoulders sag. "And the TARDIS hasn't picked up any signs of a natural radioactive rift."

Jack had a sudden flash of understanding. "Oh." He said softly.

"How can there be no data?" Rose asked. She turned to Jack angrily. "And what do you mean 'oh'?"

"There's no data because this planet hasn't been officially discovered yet." Jack explained solemnly. "Which means it's never had any sort of outside contact. And see this?" Jack pointed to a section at the bottom of the monitor. It was a single straight line that stretched from one end of the screen to another. "I'm assuming this is some kind of communications receiver?" He looked up questioningly at the Doctor, who nodded. "And it's not picking up anything. So even if there are people out there, they don't have advanced enough technology to send subspace signals, so they probably won't have anything strong enough to power the TARDIS either."

Rose tried to be optimistic about the situation. "You don't know that though. Maybe they're just shy, like that shut-in a few flats down from mum's, and don't like talking to people."

The Doctor, who had been quiet while Jack gave his explanation, smiled. "Maybe you're right Rose! There's no way to know until we investigate for ourselves, right?" The Doctor's enthusiasm returned in the face of Rose's determination to remain positive. He grinned. "And the readings did pick up lifeforms- lots of 'em, and hominid. We've clearly landed in the middle of some form of civilization."

"And civilization means they must have some kind of power- do you think a converter of some sort would work, Doctor?" Rose interjected.

The Doctor froze, then slowly turned to look at Rose. His grin nearly overtook his face. "Rose Tyler you fantastic girl!" He laughed, picking her up by the waist and spinning her around. Rose laughed. The Doctor set her down. "Entirely fantastic." He said, cupping her face in his hands as he enthusiastically kissed her forehead. "You are absolutely right! If they've got power, we can use it. It might take a while for me to build a proper converter, but I'm sure I've got whatever parts I'll need here in the TARDIS. Now I only need to build it, and once that's done it's only a matter of how long it takes to convert until the TARDIS is restored!"

Jack pretended not to notice the way the corners of the Doctor's grin fell the moment Rose turned away. They all needed a distraction right now and Jack was more than happy to provide. "What are we waiting for then, Doc? Let's meet the natives!" Jack made his way past the Doctor and Rose and pulled open the doors of the TARDIS with a flourish.

Jack's first sight was not, unfortunately, that of the locals. Instead, Jack's enthusiasm was met with rocks.

"What's the hold-up Jack?" Rose called out, coming up behind him. The Doctor followed her, grumbling about companions always wandering off. "Is that the sea?" She asked, surprised.

Jack nodded. The TARDIS was parked on a giant boulder that rested right near the cliff-face. Jack stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the boulder, careful to watch his footing. If he fell, the fall would be a long one.

"Oi Doctor, I thought you said there were people? All I see are a bunch of rocks." Rose asked teasingly. "Or did you get confused?"

The Doctor pouted. "I'll have you know," he said, whipping out the sonic screwdriver and waving it about, "that the people," the sonic beeped, "are that way!" He proclaimed, gesturing inland with the screwdriver.

"Well, it looks like we've got a bit of a walk then." Rose said cheerfully, hopping off of the boulder and onto the sturdy ground beneath it. "Better get a move on! Hurry up slowpokes!"

The Doctor grinned, his good mood returning in the face of exploring a planet even _he_ had never heard of. Jack laughed, eager as well for a new adventure.

They actually hadn't been walking for that long until the hard and rocky ground beneath them transitioned to soft soil. The Doctor crouched down, dragging his finger through the dirt.

"Doctor why'd you st-" Rose looked back to see the Doctor stand up with a finger stuck in his mouth. "Did you just eat dirt?" She asked flatly.

The Doctor smiled that cheeky grin he sported whenever he realized he was acting strange from a human's perspective. "Hmm, yep! I suppose I did."

"Should I even ask why?" She asked, failing to hold back her own amusement.

"Yes, you should, because it's a good answer." He leaned forward in the way that Rose had come to realize meant he was preparing a small lecture. "You see Rose, no bit of soil's alike. The minerals and bits inside can be a good indicator of what can grow in the area if anything."

"And I'm guessing if we know what grows we can take a good guess on what might eat it?" Jack interjected. The Doctor beamed up at him.

"See Rose, he gets it." He said, gesturing towards Jack. "It's not weird."

"No, Doctor, eating dirt's still weird." Rose assured him. He pouted. Rose just shared a knowing look with Jack, who promptly told the Doctor that he agreed with Rose, and dirt licking was strange. That lead to their current argument, with the Doctor somehow trying to justify dirt-licking as a completely rational method of analysis. Rose made sure to stay well ahead of them to keep them from dragging her into their nonsense.

She made it to the top of the small hill they had been climbing and let out a gasp. Immediately the Doctor and Jack rushed over, demanding what was wrong. Jack's hand was on his gun, the Doctor already gripping the sonic. When they came up beside her, they froze as well.

"They're daisies." Jack said in awe.

In front of them was a field of daisies, going as far as the eye could see- literally. Rose couldn't see the edges of the field, and given that whoever planted the daisies planted the seeds around several large trees rather than tearing those trees down, she figured the field was much, much larger than she could tell.

She bent down, gently touching a soft petal. A breeze blew, and she caught whiff of a strange aroma. Her eyes widened when she realized it came from the flowers. "These aren't daisies at all." She said, somewhat surprised. They had certainly _looked_ like daisies to her.

The Doctor nodded, scanning the flowers with the sonic since they were so opposed to taste-testing. He read the results of the scan off the sonic. "You're right, at least a little bit. From the looks of things, these little guys have a bit of everything in their genetic makeup- lavender, azalea- anything sweet smelling, really. And to top it all off, designed to look like daisies." He beamed. "It's fantastic really."

"Are they safe, Doc?" Jack asked warily, having been on far too many planets where seemingly innocuous plants turned out to be not so harmless after all.

"Oh yeah, of course. Completely harmless. They look pretty and smell nice; someone's just showin' off." The Doctor assured him. Jack relaxed at knowing they were essentially just wandering through some rich guy's hyped-up flower garden.

The walk through the flowers was actually quite nice, compared to their usual pace of running for their lives. The Doctor found himself beginning to unwind at the soothing scent and the obvious fun Jack and Rose were having as they had a brief game of tag.

He still didn't like that he knew next to nothing about this planet or the people who lived here. Rose would argue that it hardly mattered because he almost never used the TARDIS databanks when they landed somewhere _anyways_ , so why would he get worked up now? She would have a point there, he knew. But not even having the option to look it up unsettled him. Besides, even if he didn't check the data banks, he usually had a great deal idea of what to expect in a planet. Here he had nothing.

And the TARDIS's power issue was worrying as well. Rose had been right, if they managed to find a steady power source, he could probably build something to convert that into usable energy for the TARDIS. But no matter how good you were- even if you were as good as him- there was a limit to how much technology could do. If the only power here was too primitive, they could still be stuck on this planet for years, possibly even decades.

The Doctor only believed in coincidences when they were convenient for him. The TARDIS crashing on one of the few planets in the universe that wasn't in the TARDIS databanks and therefore had the highest possibility of leaving them stranded for months, potentially years? He wasn't inclined to believe it was just fate.

Clearly he was getting paranoid in his old age.

He frowned, and tried to pull himself out of his mood before either of his companions noticed. Besides, this was an adventure after all, and what good were adventures if you already knew everything?

"Hey, do you smell that?" Rose asked suddenly, stopping to sniff the air. Jack paused too.

"Yeah, smells like-"

"Food!" Rose exclaimed happily. Her stomach gave a slight rumble. She flushed. "All this excitement may have gotten me a bit hungry."

"I'm always hungry." Jack flirted, giving her a wink. "But seriously," he said, "that food smells delicious, and if we can smell it, we must not be that far away from a town of some sort."

The Doctor bobbed his head in agreement. "Yeah, it's probably coming from that city up ahead." He said blandly.

"What city?" Rose asked, looking in the same direction. "Doctor, I don't see anything."

"It's probably still too far for you two to see, but it's right up there." He told her, pointing. "Seems rather large too." Rose squinted, and she could just make out a bump in the horizon.

"That doesn't look too far away." She murmured thoughtfully. A beat passed before she finally made up her mind and grabbed the Doctor's hand, lacing his calloused fingers in with her own. "What are you waiting for? Come on!" She teased, pulling him along as she ran towards the city that grew larger with each step.

Jack's steps faltered as Rose and The Doctor darted ahead. "Hey, wait up you guys!" He spluttered before chasing after them, unwilling to be left behind.

They made it to the front gates in no time. The city was quite grand, and out of the corner of his eye the Doctor could see Rose brushing her hair back and straightening her clothes to look more presentable. He subtly adjusted his own worn leather jacket, which had listed to one side after his run across the not-daisy field.

Jack slid up behind them, giving a low whistle at the sight of the city. "Woah. This looks like a high-end place Doc."

The Doctor just nodded. As long as you acted the part, these kind of places weren't hard to get into, but once you did you had to prepare yourself to being watched the whole time. Any sort of slip-up and they'd be outed as strangers in no time. What they needed was information.

The Doctor looked around, positive that if there was a gate, there would be guards. Sure enough, he could see one stationed no more than 10 meters away.

He sauntered up to the guard, a carefully careless smile firmly in place. "Hello old chap, don't suppose you mind telling us where we are?" A bit blunt, but oh well.

The guard smiled at him politely, if a tad confused. "Are you lost sir?"

"That is usually why people ask." He said pointedly.

The guard flushed. "Right, sorry sir. Didn't mean to offend."

The Doctor shrugged it off. "No harm done." He said. "My companions and I just happened to get ourselves a bit turned around and then we came across this lovely city." He said admiringly.

The guard nodded. "A storm blow your ship off course? Break your log pose?" He said sympathetically.

The Doctor grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, suppose you could say that." He said, scratching the back of his neck to show his chagrin. Truthfully, he had no idea what a 'log pose' was, although he got the feeling he should find out sooner rather than later. The bit about storms and ships was interesting though. Either this planet got a lot of air traffic or, and this seemed more likely given the clear blue sky, this area had lots of sailing. The thought made him giddy. It had been a long time since he was last on a proper sailing boat.

"This is the port city Acacia, in the kingdom Dressrosa." The guard told him helpfully. The Doctor tried to act like those words meant something to him.

"Dressrosa? Really?" The Doctor asked, trying to sound like he had heard of the place before. "I always wanted to visit here, heard it was beautiful. Fantastic city. Absolutely lovely." He clapped his hands together enthusiastically, looking for Rose as he did so. He hoped her wonderful timing would show up and help him out before he made a fool of himself in front of this guard and get them locked in jail. Again.

"Yes," the guard said, "we are quite proud of our reputation." He smiled. "Since this isn't the main entrance to Acacia you won't see many shops at first- mostly residential area, you see?" He said the last bit almost apologetically, as if genuinely sorry the Doctor would see the housing area before the shops. "But if you head down the main road until you get to one of our famous gambling restaurants and take a left, a few blocks down from there you should be able to pick up a replacement log pose."

"Ah, thanks." The Doctor said, "you're quite helpful." He hesitated, wanting to ask more questions, but figuring it would look suspicious if he asked anymore. "Have a good day then." He decided. He, Rose, and Jack would have plenty of opportunities in the city to get more information.

He had only gone a few steps before the guard called out to him. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, curious about what the guard had to say. "What is it?"

The guard leaned in, voice low. "Look sir, Acacia's one of the safest cities around, but you seem like a decent folks so I thought I should warn you." Here he bit his bottom lip, unsure. He looked around quickly, making sure no one was watching. "Pirates have been spotted in the area. And considering the new alliance between Trafalgar Law and Straw Hat Luffy..."

"What?" Pirates definitely sounded like something to worry about, and the way the guard said the names 'Trafalgar Law' and 'Straw Hat Luffy' it sounded like these guys were bad news. Best try to avoid them. He wouldn't want anything to happen to Rose- or Jack for that matter- and considering the TARDIS was out of commission for the foreseeable future, he actually wanted to say out of trouble for once.

The guard's eyes went wide. "You haven't heard?" He reached into his jacket and pulled out a newspaper. 'WARLORD TRAFALGAR LAW IN UNPRECEDENTED ALLIANCE WITH STRAWHAT CREW' was blazoned on the front cover, followed by what the Doctor presumed to be the pictures of the pirates in question.

The Doctor's lips thinned into a tight line. "Do you mind if I keep this?" He asked, pointing to the newspaper.

"Oh yeah, sure." The guard said, pushing the newspaper into the Doctor's hands. "I can get a new one. Just be careful out there, these guys are vicious." A serious look overcame the guard's face as he looked the Doctor dead in the eye. "If the rumors are true and the Straw Hats do show up on Acacia, don't try to be a hero. Just get your friends and run."

"Right." The Doctor said grimly, staring down at the picture of a grinning teenage boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the Doctor and co. are in Acacia (sort of) and the Straw Hats have been introduced (sort of)!
> 
> Boy howdy, what a chapter. A lot of filler, but also kinda necessary. The Doctor's got issues to deal with- he's not used to not being the guy with all the answers, so this whole fic is gonna have him out of his comfort zone.
> 
> I get the feeling stuff's really gonna pick up next chapter, now that all the players are getting to where they need to be.  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you liked/didn't like, and what you want to see/ don't want to see happen in the future.  
> Please let me know if you spot any glaring mistakes or OOC moments.  
> Hope you guys enjoy this!
> 
> Also, this is my first time posting on AO3, so if there is some funky formatting going on I might not catch it right away, so let me know so I can fix it.


End file.
